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Translating Brain Waves Into Words
cortex writes with an excerpt from the L.A. Times: "In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain. ... The device could benefit people who have been paralyzed by stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease or trauma and are 'locked in' — aware but unable to communicate except, perhaps, by blinking an eyelid or arduously moving a cursor to pick out letters or words from a list. ... Some researchers have been attempting to 'read' speech centers in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. But such electrodes 'are so far away from the electrical activity that it gets blurred out,' [University of Utah bioengineer Bradley] Greger said. ... He and his colleagues instead use arrays of tiny microelectrodes that are placed in contact with the brain, but not implanted. In the current study, they used two arrays, each with 16 microelectrodes."
As somebody who is fluently bilingual (speaking one language at home and another while out with friends), my thoughts tend to be neither English or Afrikaans but rather concepts which are then translated. When I think I generally dont think in words unless I think about thinking in words. I'm sure many other bilingual people that speak both languages frequently can probably say something similar.
P300 is typically 300ms (thus the name), and the technique I was referring to uses two responses to generate a match (it flashes rows and columns so you need an X and Y response). 600ms or thereabouts is thus the time to beat. It's not lightning fast - nothing like typing - but a whole hell of a lot better than the reference methods that they're referring to. They're solving a brain-computer interface problem that was solved 10 years ago, and that was made irrelevant several years ago when cheap neural interfaces started hitting the commercial commodity market.
Of course this is all relying on TFA, which could be completely misrepresenting their research given the general high quality of modern science journalism.
Also, earlier kidding aside, the article is probably completely missing the point. It is likely that the actual purpose of the research is NOT to develop the current prototype's functionality. It is more likely that it is exploring the ability to take, reduce, and analyze data of this type. The fact that you can build (buy off-the-shelf for peanuts) a BCI whose functionality is equal to or greater than their prototype using less invasive methods is probably completely beside the point.
is when you read their words, and they just say "kill me"
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
To translate your query into a more IT-intelligible analogue, can you build a model of the internet by posting random things to Slashdot and then watching Google Trends?
Which "speech center(s)"? There's two main regions, neither of which can do the job alone.
Both.... From another article: "Each of two grids with 16 microECoGs spaced 1 millimeter (about one-25th of an inch) apart, was placed over one of two speech areas of the brain: First, the facial motor cortex, which controls movements of the mouth, lips, tongue and face -- basically the muscles involved in speaking. Second, Wernicke's area, a little understood part of the human brain tied to language comprehension and understanding."
"One unexpected finding: When the patient repeated words, the facial motor cortex was most active and Wernicke's area was less active. Yet Wernicke's area "lit up" when the patient was thanked by researchers after repeating words. It shows Wernicke's area is more involved in high-level understanding of language, while the facial motor cortex controls facial muscles that help produce sounds, Greger says."
As to the scary part, just wait till they get to the next step: 11x11 grids and not just 4x4
Source for this info: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100907071249.htm
This + cellphone technology + in-ear speaker = telepathy
Score:-1, Funny